At BuzzSumo, we analyzed 100 million headlines published in 2017 to see what insights, if any, we could gain to improve our headlines and ensure they resonate with our audience.

We published our detailed findings in a lengthy, 4,000-word post. But the essence of an engaging headline comes down to just a few core principles, we found.

The Data: The Most-Engaging Facebook Headline Phrases

Our research found that the three-word phrases (trigrams) that gained the most Facebook engagements—likes, shares, comments—were the following:

The Implications: The Essence of an Engaging Headline

The danger of this type of research is that people simply copy or reuse top phrases that have worked previously. I know it is tempting, but at least avoid “will make you”; I already feel bad that the research unleashed dozens of these headlines on the world in the few days after the publication of the research.

The true value of the research lies in helping us to understand the formats and principles that underpin a good headline.

The research suggests that engaging headlines…

Focus on why the reader should care

Have clarity and promise

Include emotional hooks

Provoke curiosity

Provide explanations

Appeal to a tribe

Let’s look at these in a little more detail.

1. Make the Reader Care

In our sample, the most powerful three-word phrase used in a headline was will make you.

Linking phrases such as “will make you” can be an elegant and effective way of connecting your content to the reader and why they should care.

This format makes explicit the linkage between the content and the potential impact on the reader.

Of course, the content must live up the promise; otherwise, your credibility will be shot. In this case, I really don’t think any charts will make me a baking whiz, but I was probably not the target audience. Over 900,000 people shared this post. (We will talk more about the importance of the audience later.)

3. Emotional Hooks

In consumer content, we were not surprised to find that emotional words and phrases have impact. Well-shared headlines included phrases such as the following:

Tears of joy

Make you cry

Melt your heart

Most beautiful

Can’t stop laughing

These emotional headlines were used far less in B2B headlines, and they didn’t appear in the top trigrams for LinkedIn or Twitter.

However, certain keywords can have a similar emotional impact in B2B headlines. For example, words such as “success” or “successful” in a LinkedIn headline typically get a lot more shares than the average.

4. Curiosity

Curiosity is powerful. There are some things we can’t resist. It is part of that classic narrative arc of an unfolding mystery: We want to find out “who did it.”

I am disappointed to report that “what happened next” was a top phrase that plays on our curiosity. Clickbait headlines containing that phrase typically show disrespect to the reader, and they are far removed from the traditional journalistic practice of summarizing the important details in the headline. On the positive side, Facebook now categorizes headlines that withhold information as clickbait, and demotes them.

There are ways to provoke curiosity in your headlines without resorting to “what happened next” clickbait.

5. Explanations

“This is why” was the No. 2 best-performing phrase in our sample of 100 million posts. Explanation posts can use headlines to provoke curiosity as well as provide answers. For example:

Explanations backed by research or science appear to do particularly well. A whole new “genre” of “science says” and “according to science” posts has emerged recently.

6. Tribalism

One of the unfortunate things about recent political developments has been the increased tribalism in politics, which has in turn led to more polemical headlines that are widely shared by supporters of one political viewpoint or another.

People widely share content to show they are part of a tribe and to support their tribe.

This sort of tribalism extends well beyond politics. Headlines and content designed to appeal to a specific group of people can frequently benefit from tribal loyalty. For example:

Learning From the Phrases That Fail to Engage

We also looked at the commonly used phrases in headlines that receive the lowest Facebook engagement. In some ways, this exercise was more insightful than the top engaging phrases.

Note: We looked only at phrases or trigrams that were used on a minimum of 100 domains. Accordingly, there are clearly worse-performing phrases; but these are the worst-performing commonly used phrases.

My sense of these phrases is that they are typically more negative in tone. For example, among these phrases are “the risks of,” “don’t forget to” and “how much will.”

The Importance of Context

It was interesting to see how poorly phrases some phrases, such as “on a budget,” performed on Facebook. That may be due to the context: On Facebook, people are looking for more inspirational or amusing content than practical content.

By contrast, the phrase “on a budget” appears to work well on Pinterest for DIY topics, because the context is different. See these examples:

Context, then, is important: Phrases that work well in one context may work far less well in another, the research found.

For example, we found that in the health category “need to know” was a powerful phrase. However, in a marketing context, it can be far less effective, such as a post on “10 Things You Need to Know About BuzzSumo.” The health context is what gives the phrase personal impact.

The Secret to Engaging Headlines? Understanding Context and Research

Our research may provoke many ideas about headline words and phrases, but it has more value in drawing out the fundamental characteristics of engaging headlines. To repeat, they typically include one or more of the following:

A focus on why the reader should care

Clarity and promise

Emotional hooks

Provoke curiosity

Provide explanations

Appeal to a tribe

The research also reinforces the importance of context and emphasizes why you need to research what works in your specific context: namely, your audience, your industry, your topics, and your social networks.

Intention

Without intention there can be no lasting results because results flow from patiently spending your energy in a persistent direction.

Intentions are where that persistent direction comes from.

Did you hear that? It was important.

Here’s a question to illustrate: Why are you doing what you’re doing?

Many of us try to build a business out of fear. We’re afraid of our bosses, our jobs, or how shitty it feels to work.

Many others of us are trying to build a business to prove to ourselves (and our friends/parents/world) that we are valuable. This is another kind of fear; the fear that we aren’t already valuable.

If you try to build your thing out of fear you will fail because fear makes you change direction too much. You won’t find success until that fear starts converting into intention.

This is especially so in modern online business where there is ever growing noise, competition and distraction.

So, we need to find our place of intention if we’re going to be persistent enough to get results, and in order to do that we need to have steady progress.

Progress

Regardless of our intention, fear and results, we can start making progress right now, today, and this is how we’ll find our intention.

NOTE: you don’t conquer fear by beating up fear. You overcome it by accomplishing tiny things that matter to you.

Sounds good, right? We get some work done, and learn more about the work we want to get done.

Let’s talk about houses for a second.

Have you ever seen a house being built? I’m thinking specifically of when a house is being framed.

I remember when my house was being built. For a time it was just 2×4 pieces of wood held together by screws. We could walk through the rooms and imagine how it was going to feel even though there were no walls, no paint, no ceilings.

This whole house I’m writing to you from is held together by screws.

My business, the reason why I’m writing this and you’re reading it, is held together by screws too.

This will be the case for you as well… if your business gets built.

I want you to set a screw. Just one screw. Today.

A screw is a task, a project… it’s progress.

You string a few screws together and you’ve got, not just progress, but MOMENTUM.

We need progress and momentum, it’s like the wind in our sales. It keeps us going.

And progress is made out of screws. Not massive things, but little screws.

Screws hold an entire house together, and they’re TINY.

Today, all you need to do is set a screw.

And this is where you ask, “but which screw am I supposed to drill right now!?”

“We can use PROGRESS to counteract fear and get the intention and results we truly want.”Tweet This

“What Matters Right Now?”

If we’re going to set one of these screws — finish one of these tasks and projects — we’ll have to focus on just one at a time.

So, which one should we focus on!?

I want to share a little trick to get us feeling confident about which screw to set.

Using this tactic myself, personally, has led to enormous amounts of progress, momentum, clarity, intention and results in my own work.

And it just might do the same for you.

Here’s the exercise:

Get calm and present. I do this through a little slow-breathing stretching to get myself noticing my body, followed up by a few minutes of quiet meditation (just breathing and feeling the breath in my body).

Then, with my eyes still closed and my breath still calm, I ask myself what task matters right now for my business and gently listen to myself for responses.

I weigh each response by how much sense it makes and how much it feels like peace. Those last three words are crucial.

Why is this exercise good?

First of all, you can do it anywhere, anytime. (Depending on what it is you do to get calm and present.)

It can bypass all sorts of mind-chatter. I notice that when I do this, my thoughts are much clearer and my anxiety/fear is less intense/intrusive.

It helps us have more motivation to complete the tasks. When my task comes from a quiet place inside me that I weighed myself, I’m just much more internally motivated and interested in that task.

Some tips on how to do this yourself:

Have a regular process of getting calm, something you can do again and again. Ever seen how a professional basketball player has a process to shoot a free-throw? It’s like that. For me, it involves getting my mind into my body every time because my thoughts can be like a fire hose sometimes.

Don’t get lost in big projects. Allow only small ideas to bubble up for a little while. Remember the screw metaphor… keep these tasks/projects small. I mean it, this is important, only use this to find little screws for a while.

When you’ve got the task that matters and you feel peaceful and confident about it, write that task on a piece of paper and reverse-engineer it. Write down the LAST TASK and then write down every task that needs to happen before that in order from last to first. This helps us get crystal clear on what to do next.

Over time you may naturally feel a change in vision. This may be your intention becoming clearer. This takes time, don’t be anxious about it, so be patient and allow it take time. You can email me at Chase (at) Fizzle (dot) co if your shifting vision/intention starts getting painful and/or confusing.

How we counteract fear and start making progress

So, we can counteract fear and get to intention and results by using progress.

Progress comes in the form of completing little tasks and projects. Think of them like screws — they’re small, but they hold the whole house together.

So, today (and everyday) we need to drill in a screw or two because screws = progress and momentum.

Now, when you get some momentum going your intention and vision will develop. The blueprint for the house will get clearer and more detailed.

… and this is how you’ll manifest your business… one screw at a time.

So, that’s a helpful exercise I use to figure out what screw to set. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you in the comments.

I’d love to hear your take.

“Here’s how we counteract fear and start getting results. #screws”Tweet This

If you’re interested in more intention for your business:

“Chase I feel like you’re more excited than ever about Fizzle and what you’re building toward. I know you’ve always been so fun, but lately that energy seems to be more focused and driven, and it was amazing to see your journaling process.”

The Top 10 Mistakes in Online Business

Every week we talk with entrepreneurs. We talk about what’s working and what isn’t. We talk about successes and failures. We spend time with complete newbies, seasoned veterans, and everything in between.

One topic that comes up over and over again with both groups is mistakes made in starting businesses. Newbies love to learn about mistakes so they can avoid them. Veterans love to talk about what they wish they had known when starting out.

The world of email subject lines is growing more sophisticated as email marketers and customers become more savvy and sensitive to spam and sales pitches. Statistics show that 47 percent of people will open an email because of the subject line, with an additional 22 percent increase for personalized subject lines. Perhaps even more significant, a whopping 69 percent will mark an email as spam from the subject line alone.

Email is powerful, and your subject line is key to unlocking that power. So how do you come up with a great opener? It doesn’t have to be a stressful process, even if you’re not a master writer.

To help you create successful subject lines, we’ve put together a list of five tips. And while some of them may not be the most innovative, they’re time (and open-rate) tested.

1. Try a pop culture reference

There is nothing — we mean nothing — like a clever or “punny” pop culture reference. You might quote a line from a movie, reference a bit of celebrity gossip or use a song title. Brainstorm ideas and keep a notebook handy for particularly memorable puns you think of or come across.

Be smart about your references: Take a second to consider if the particular situation or quote you’re referencing will cause offense or could be misconstrued. Sometimes the juiciest pop culture opportunities can be a double-edged sword. Unless you know your audience extremely well, avoid politics even if that seems like a treasure trove of material.

2. Hashtag it up

Mentioning trending topics and other references to social media can also attract readers. Consider drawing inspiration from weekly hashtags or recent trends. Do you use Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest? Move those principles over to your email regimen.

This email with a hashtag in its subject line shows great social media savvy. The line could appear as a Facebook or Twitter post. In fact, writing your subject lines like you’re composing a Tweet forces you to stay concise, direct and clever. Try it out; you’d be surprised what you can do with 140 characters!

3. Give and ye shall receive

Modern marketing relies on the idea of giving to your customers before you ask them to buy from you. To get people to click your emails, tell them what you’re offering — but be sure not to oversell it. Try offering a gift with purchase, discounted shipping or a free consultation. When you give something of value to your customers, they are more likely to come back for additional products or services.

4. Tell a joke

Why so serious? Humor builds bridges and can help you connect with your readers. You might make them laugh with a pithy observation, some sort of joke or even just a funny anecdote. If you visit any humor sites, watch sitcoms or follow any humor feeds on social media, think about something that made you laugh and how you might translate that principle to an email subject title.

Try looking through these tips for increasing your subject line humor, too.

5. Be descriptive

If it feels forced, if you’re overwhelmed or if you just can’t come up with anything, it’s not the end of the world. In that case, give a descriptive subject with your most important words near the front of the line. Describe a new product or offer specific details about an upcoming sale. Sometimes a short, direct subject line is the most effective.

Bonus: Get personal

Like we mentioned above, personalization can increase your open rates by more than 20 percent. In fact, personalization is almost a given in modern marketing. Test adding a custom field to your subject line to pull in your customers’ name.

If you don’t have details on your email subscribers, send a survey or questionnaire to your email list with a request, “Help us get to know you,” and an incentive in exchange, like a “special gift on your birthday.” Ask for details like name, birthday or anniversary, or any additional details that make sense for your business. For retail or service-based businesses, use the information you may have of your customers’ prior purchases or appointments. Is it time to remind them to book another appointment, or re-order your goods? A personalized reminder can be a great aid in building your relationship with your subscribers.

Subject lines can be as fun to create as they are to read. With a little practice and help from the tips above, you can create some memorable subject lines that get customers to open. Be sure to test your subject lines — A/B testing can help take the guessing out of which subject line might perform best.

To continue to find subject line inspiration, look through our list of great subject lines and see what moves you.

Spend less time reaching more customers

Editor’s Note: This blog post was originally published in July 2015 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and relevance.

Meridith Elliott Powell

Off the Cuff Interview Question: “Why would you rate prospecting high on the list of sales skills, and how could a salesperson come to enjoy it?”

I get it, prospecting is one of the hardest parts of sales. As a sales professional is can be tough to keep your motivation up while getting a lot of rejection. It can kill your enthusiasm and zap your energy.

However, prospecting is key to sales success. Without a solid sales prospecting strategy, your ability to keep your sales pipeline full and your sales goals met will be a constant struggle. Prospecting is the engine of sales. It was keep the pipeline moving and the deal flow well flowing. When we prospect effectively, we create a system that creates more leads, invites more sales conversations and results in more closed deals.

So like it or not sales prospecting is good for you, and believe it or not it can be fun. Here are six strategies to help you enjoy the process just a little more.

Mindset – Get your head right. Start think of prospecting as relationship building rather than sales. When we focus on building relationships we take the pressure off, and we allow ourselves to connect with prospects rather than pushing them.

Plan – Make a plan. Effective prospecting means knowing your target market; knowing where they go, what they do and how to connect with them; ,and understanding the right questions to ask to really vet your prospect. The better your prospecting plan, the more prospects you will turn into customers.

Control – Take control. Approach prospecting with the idea that you are interviewing prospects and you get to choose who does business with you. Prospect from a place of power rather than a place of need.

Journey – Enjoy the journey. Understand that you are connecting now with prospects that you will do business with two or three years from now. Slow, down and breathe.

Do It Anyway – Take the pressure off. Prospect whether you need to or not. The best time to prospect is when your pipeline is full.

Celebrate & Learn– Invest the time to reflect. Celebrate every win you get and learn from the rejections. Reflection is powerful in helping you do more of what is working and less of what is not.

Data is the new currency, but are advertisers spending wisely?Aug 17, 2017 by Toby McKennaDespite big investments in data, many marketers are headed into the key holiday season knowing little about their data partners or if they’re reaching the right audiences. Contributor Toby McKenna explains how to separate the data contenders from the data pretenders.

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About The Author

Amy Gesenhues is Third Door Media’s General Assignment Reporter, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs.com, SoftwareCEO.com, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy’s articles.

My experience with Hanapin gave me high standards for future employers and taught me why your colleagues are the most important part of your job.

This summer I was a Client Services Intern at Hanapin Marketing for 10 weeks. Although it was my first experience as an intern, it set the bar high for future internship programs. Going into my first internship, I was nervous of being thrown into tasks without proper training or being a glorified coffee-runner/copy-maker. However, I never encountered any of these scenarios at Hanapin. Luckily, I stumbled upon the Indeed.com advertisement when I did, because it brought me to the best internship in Indiana. Here are a few of the highlights from my time at Hanapin:

Day 1 at Hanapin

From the welcoming committee and coffee at Crumble to the swag bag and handwritten greeting cards, I felt important as an intern from my first day at Hanapin Marketing. As soon as I walked in the door, many members of the team approached me and started conversations as if I had been working there for years. I quickly learned that this was the office culture at Hanapin. Everyone at my internship was friendly and offered something unique to the office dynamic. The conversations I had with my colleagues the first day did so much to make me feel like a part of the team, not just another lowly intern. There is a reason why Hanapin has received best employer in Indiana for two years running and I quickly saw that as soon as the first day at my internship.

My Supervisor

My supervisor Kristine made me feel valued in many ways at Hanapin. First, she reminded me everyday during meetings that the work I was doing was valuable and would be utilized for years to come. Second, Kristine included me in every Monday Morning Meeting (MMM). During these meetings, she talked about my projects and how important they were to the entire Hanapin Team. This weekly reminder fostered a sense of pride in the work that I was doing at Hanapin. Third, Kristine allowed me to give the update during a few of the MMM’s towards the end of my internship. This was extremely nerve wrecking, but helped me to step outside of my box. Fourth, she encouraged me to participate in exercises during the training sessions, which helped me grow and develop as a professional person. Kristine was not only a good supervisor, but also a great life-coach and friend.

REDBOP with GA and Google

Remote week was one of my favorite weeks at my internship. Not only did I get access to my supervisor in-person for the entire week, but I also got to sit in on all of the trainings sessions with the Hanapin team. To my delight, one of the sessions was a sponsored training session with our Google partners. The speaker’s name was GA and he brought so much enthusiasm and wit into the training session. He taught us so much about being good sales people and improving our communication skills. Not only did I get valuable takeaways from the session, but I also got the chance to bond with the rest of the Hanapin team outside of the office.

Presentation Day

On the day of my presentation I felt everything coming full circle. Everything I learned during those 10 weeks would be put on display for my supervisor and the Director of Services. During my presentation, I surprised myself with all of the knowledge that I had obtained throughout a ten-week period. It was easy to talk about the onboarding process, accountability during the first 90 days and the different types of clients. It turns out that all of the shadowing, training sessions and department overviews were extremely helpful in order to present my project thoroughly and accurately. Hanapin’s internship program truly gave me the resources and confidence to present my final project to the best of my ability.

Closing Thoughts

The Hanapin team, the office culture and my supervisor are just a few of the things I will miss the most about my time at Hanapin. I doubt I will be able to replicate the awesomeness of this internship anywhere else. However, in the future, I will strive to find employers who will treat me with as well as Hanapin. Moreover, I hope I will find a supervisor with as much candor, enthusiasm and experience as Kristine. Kristine really made my time at Hanapin special and I can’t thank her enough! Finally, I hope that all interns get the chance to experience an internship program as fantastic as Hanapin’s.

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]]>http://scoop.faz.al/social-media-marketing-how-to-win-at-social-media/feed/11Customize Your Profile & Network Reports With Report Builderhttp://scoop.faz.al/customize-your-profile-network-reports-with-report-builder/
http://scoop.faz.al/customize-your-profile-network-reports-with-report-builder/#respondThu, 17 Aug 2017 11:59:45 +0000http://scoop.faz.al/customize-your-profile-network-reports-with-report-builder/Agencies know proving value to their clients is important, and with 80% of companies outsourcing all or part of their social media marketing tactics, that’s a big job. At Sprout, we understand the needs and nuances of agencies and we’re here to provide a solution. We recently launched the Agency Partner Program, and now we’ve released a reporting feature agencies need: Report Builder.

Report Builder, available to Agency Partner Program participants and included with Sprout’s Enterprise plan, provides agencies and brands with tools to create customized reports tailored specifically to their needs and the needs of their clients. Tl;dr: Spend less time putting together client reports and more time taking advantage of the ping pong table in the break room.

Create the Report You Need

Report Builder enables you to quickly build reports using Sprout’s existing data, analytics and reporting modules. There’s no longer a need to spend valuable time pasting together report sections outside of Sprout—simply create and export a custom report built to showcase the social metrics and insights most important to you and your clients.

How It Works

To create a custom report, use the Build Report button and start by selecting the desired timeframe and profiles. Then choose widgets from the report modules (Twitter Profiles, Facebook Pages, Instagram Profiles, LinkedIn Company Pages and Group Reports) based on the story you want to tell—whether that be social growth, audience engagement, content marketing performance or more.

Once you’ve added your widgets you can rearrange, remove or customize each module to focus on the data and insights that are most important to you and your clients. Add in notes to describe what’s included in the report, an explanation of metrics or how the data tells your client’s social success story.

If you’re looking to make changes to an existing network or group report, click Edit This Report to rearrange, customize or remove sections. Once you’ve created and saved a customized report, quickly access them again by going to Your Reports in the Report nav.

The customizable Report Builder is a welcome addition to Sprout’s report offerings,” Wade said. “It’s great to be able to narrow down the data to show my clients’ specific goals. Additionally, having the option for cross platform reporting is really helpful.

A Full Package of Agency Features

After you’ve built your social media reports, provide presentation-ready PDFs to your clients. Using Sprout’s Send PDF and Schedule Delivery functions, you can quickly and easily share reports through Sprout. Upon delivery, your clients will receive a white-labeled email and PDF that includes their logo.

How will your agency use the new Report Builder? Sound off in the comments below.

]]>http://scoop.faz.al/customize-your-profile-network-reports-with-report-builder/feed/0How to Become a Great Sales Coachhttp://scoop.faz.al/how-to-become-a-great-sales-coach/
http://scoop.faz.al/how-to-become-a-great-sales-coach/#respondThu, 17 Aug 2017 11:59:14 +0000http://scoop.faz.al/how-to-become-a-great-sales-coach/

What is the difference between a sales manager that does poorly, one that does just okay, and one that really excels? Join sales expert and author Kevin F. Davis as he walks us through one major factor: a sales manager’s ability as a sales coach. What makes for a great coach? Kevin has researched this subject in detail, and shares the most important details in this video.